AMHERST — UMass Amherst climatologist Dr. Raymond S. Bradley has been awarded the Roy J. Zuckerberg Endowed Leadership Award "in recognition of his courage, conviction and selflessness in devoting his time and talent to helping the University of Massachusetts to accomplish its goals."

The Distinguished Professor is director of the Climate System Research Center and co-director of the Northeast Climate Science Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

AMHERST, Mass. – Biophysicist Nikhil S. Malvankar, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has received a coveted five-year, $500,000 career award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF) to assist him in moving from advanced postdoctoral training into a faculty position.

AMHERST, Mass. – Vincent M. Rotello, the Charles A. Goessmann Professor of Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been appointed a Distinguished Professor following approval by the UMass Board of Trustees.

For the first time in James Holden's 25-year career in deep-sea research, his research will not be funded by a government source. Instead, Holden will be funded by philanthropists committed to supporting oceanographic research. His new studies examine microbes living deep in the cracks and thermal vents around an undersea volcano.

UMass Amherst Professor Caitlyn Shea Butler, Civil Engineering, has designed and is now field-testing a new “green latrine” that purifies human waste, turning it into compost for farming and generating electricity. Her multipurpose invention is called a “Microbial Fuel Cell Latrine.”

Butler believes her inexpensive green latrine can be deployed throughout places such as rural Africa, transforming the way human waste is treated in areas where sanitation facilities are poor or nonexistent. At the same time, the device can play a key role in preventing waterborne diseases, including diarrhea. “You get a lot out of this system,” says Butler. “The latrine produces electricity. It makes compost. And you protect the ground water source. So you get a lot back for a small investment.”

Physicists Narayanan Menon, Benny Davidovitch and Christopher Santangelo, with polymer scientist Thomas Russell, recently won a three-year, $1 million Keck Foundation grant to develop the basic science needed to spontaneously deliver ultrathin films to fluid interfaces. The W.M. Keck Science and Engineering program funds “endeavors that are distinctive and novel in their approach. It encourages projects that are high-risk with the potential for transformative impact.”

Shelly Peyton, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is one of 22 researchers who have been named by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The scholarships provide flexible funding to early career scientists researching the basis of perplexing health problems—including diabetes, autism, Parkinson’s disease, and cancer.

Creativity and invention have a wild and unpredictable quality to them. Anthony has formed his own company that offers a software package that seeks to tame and rationalize these two important processes.

Anthony McCaffrey has launched his new company, Innovation Accelerator, based in West Brookfield, Mass., and its first product, Analogy Finder software. He has also finalized a licensing agreement with the university’s office of Commercial Ventures & Intellectual Property that allows the company to commercialize the software. McCaffrey is a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for e-Design in the UMass Amherst mechanical and industrial engineering department, a recent doctoral recipient in psychology, and a former elementary school teacher.

Isenberg student entrepreneurs were among the top winners in the final round of the 2013 Innovation Challenge, the UMass Amherst campus-wide business plan competition that encourages interdisciplinary student teams to transform innovations--many of them generated on campus--into viable businesses.